That work? Well, good morning. My name is Lenny, for those of you that don't know me. I'm the fourth Sunday guy. Chuck told me some time ago that the ones you're having are kind of sticking to a certain book of the Bible, and so I'm the John guy. And hopefully we'll get you John'd-est by the time my term is over. That's a little joke I use. No one ever gets it, but I throw it out there anyway. Why don't we open on a word of prayer? Father, thank you so much for this fellowship, this safe place to come. And as we look at this new individual in the book of John, Father, I would pray that each individual here would realize afresh that even in the midst of the crowd, you have your eye on the individual. even in the midst of this entire world when so many of us think, who are we that you should think specifically of us? May we be reminded again today by this passage that you seek to save the ones that are lost and that you are God and that you're able to pay attention to us as though we were the only person on earth. We sometimes lose sight of that. But you have your attention on us 24-7. And I pray, Father, that the one who is here today feeling that you have not noticed them, that they would derive from this passage that you do indeed notice them, have your heart set on them, and sent your Son, Jesus Christ, to die for them, to remove all that separates them from you. So Father, whatever problem is in this room, whatever challenges each individual faces, I pray that they would be reminded that you are fully aware of it and that you desire to lead them up and out of it. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. We're in John chapter 5. We left the woman at the well last time, for those of you that remember that. We had two Sundays with her. One of the things I love about the encounters in the book of John is that a lot of them are individuals. And the common theme in them seems to be that the Lord Jesus wants to come and move them from where they are in their life, usually our physical reality, our social realities, whatever they might be, to the most important thing of all, our spiritual reality. To know him, and I appreciated Mark's, I was listening with both ears that booklet you read. I'd like to get a copy of that if I could. But that it's faith that grabs a hold of the answer to our lives. And even faith is a gift. We need Jesus Christ. He's the most lovely one in heaven. The angels worship him. Song of Solomon says he's altogether lovely, chief among all others. He's the one that we need to meet and know. And he's the only one that can remedy our situation, that we're separated from God. And he just wants to move us from what we think sometimes is our own worldview, and everything has to fit into that worldview, that Jesus would come in and shatter those boxes. And that's where the man today that we're gonna be looking at is kind of at. He's in John chapter five, he's the paralyzed man. Back with Nicodemus, Jesus' encounter with Nicodemus, the religious ruler. He comes at night because he doesn't want to be cast out of his society, his religious fellowship of fellow religious people, Pharisees. So he comes at night. The second person we looked at was the woman at the well. She's already a social outcast. The town has put her on the bottom of the totem pole because she's lived an immoral life in that town. And so, Jesus seeks her out. Of all the people in that town, the one that's lowest on the totem pole, Jesus comes and seeks her out personally. This man has a physical handicap. Chris, is that your name? Chris. I see a little bit of you as an example here if I can use you just for a moment. Let's read this passage. John chapter 5 verse 1, sometime later Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the sheep gate a pool which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonies. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie. I'm reading out of the New International Version if it doesn't quite match what you're reading. And the NIV skips verse 4 as some modern translations do. But for those of you that have like I think the New King James has verse 4, is that true? But I'll read what is missing from our text. From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each disturbance would be cured of whatever disease he had. Now some of the earliest manuscripts don't have that verse. And we're going to look a little bit later. And in a way, I'm glad there's some kind of confusion over it. But I think the verse is necessary to understand the story. And so here's a great number of people at the pool. And they're relying on an angel to come down and stir up the waters. And the first one into the pool after the water gets stirred by the angel gets cured of whatever disease they have. Verse 5. One who was there. And I believe John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, starts that sentence with one. And that's what I want us to kind of get today. We're the most important person behind our eyeballs, aren't we? Of all the great crowd of people in our lives, aren't you the most important person in your life? I'm not saying it to be in a proud way, but really, who else is behind your eyeballs but you? You're steering this ship. You're making decisions. You're making choices. You're the only one that's looking out at your perspective in the pew at me. And so you are kind of the most important person in your life. One who was there, he was the most important person in his life. He'd been paralyzed for 38 years. But he was with a crowd of others. And so verse 6, when Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, do you want to get well? Sir, the invalid replied, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me. Then Jesus said to him, get up. Pick up your mat and walk. At once the man was cured. He picked up his mat and walked. What question really jumps off the page here to you? It really is only one question. It's Jesus' question. He comes up and he asks a man who's been paralyzed for 38 years, do you want to get well? Chris, this is where I wanted to use you. If Jesus walked into this room and he said right now, Chris, would you like to get out of that wheelchair for the rest of your life? What would your answer be? Sure. Thank you. That's not what this guy says, though. If you'd have walked into any prison in the country, any prison in the country, and said, who wants to go home today? Raise your hand. How many would raise their hand? It's not a trick question. Yes. Everybody would want to go home. So the question, do you want to go home today to someone in prison, seems like kind of a no-brainer, doesn't it? But Jesus doesn't ask silly questions. But he does ask this to a man who's been paralyzed for 38 years. Do you want to get well? And it's probably just his introduction. He's introducing himself. Would you like to get well? Would you like to get out of prison today? Would you like to get out of church early? That I can grant you. The others I can't. But think about this. If he does mean it in more of a way than just an introduction, do you want to get well, what would be the reason he would ask a question like that? Jesus made a special inquiry about this guy. It says in the passage he learned that this man had been in this condition for a long time. Verse 6, so Jesus, even before he goes up to him, has made inquiries about him. What's the story on that guy? Well, he's been paralyzed for 38 years. And Jesus comes up to him and says, do you want to get well? Now, think about the setting here. It's Jerusalem. It's got a huge wall around it. Jerusalem was one of the toughest cities to attack. It had high cliffs on three sides. And on the north side, which was usually the side that was attacked, huge wall all around the city. It had three gates on each side. So there's 12 gates all together. If you read the book of Nehemiah, it actually even names them. Some of them named after where you're going to end up if you take this gate out of Jerusalem. It's named after the town that that road will head to. Some are named for different services that that gate provides. There was one called the fish gate. I'm certain it had something to do with fish. Another one's called the manure gate. I won't even go there. They must have used it just to get rid of the waste in the city. This one is called the Sheep Gate, and I'm not sure why. Perhaps the herds came in and out there, I don't know. But you can be sure that if there's only 12 gates to this huge city, that the crowds funnel down to the gate, and it must get really cramped as people go through any of the gates. Near this one was a pool of water, and that's where this whole crowd of people is hanging out. And it's called Bethesda, isn't that interesting? Bethesda, Maryland has what, the big naval hospital there? I think Walter Reed is there. It's called Bethesda because I believe that some Christians way back when Maryland was being founded named it after this pool where people got healed. And so we've got this gate where crowds are passing all day long and somewhere along the line, Beggars used to sit by that pool. I'm sure that's how it started. Because the crowds, the society is passing by. What a perfect place for someone who's got a disability at a time when there's no social security and no disability checks, totally reliant on their families, had to sit and beg. And so over time, the crowd grows. And now you've got a bunch of people by this pool, and they're all disabled in one way or another. The blind, the lame. I appreciated your reading of Matthew 11, of how Jesus wanted John the Baptist to know that the blind are seeing, the deaf are hearing, the dead are being raised. Well, that's what was going on at this pool. But they had a tradition. They had a lore, so to speak, that went with this. They believed that at this pool there was some kind of magical situation that could take place that if you're watching the water, when the angel comes down, I don't know whether he did it with his feathers or his wings, whatever, but somehow the water got stirred, and the first one in the pool that jumps in gets healed. Now, I can't imagine that happened every Sunday. If it did, you'd have people from all over the world going to this pool. There'd be a greater number of disabled people there. My guess is it hadn't happened for years. My guess is it might have not have happened at all. Somewhere the tradition was started and this society developed at this pool. And they are a society. I call prison the Pool of Bethesda. It's where a great number of disabled people, not just physically, but life-wise have been disabled for some reason or another. There's something in their life that keeps interfering with getting on to live a normal life. I can't tell you how many men and women I've met who just long for the white picket fence. What they mean by that is just a normal life. I'd like to get married, have kids, and have a little house with a white picket fence around it. And it's been denied them because of their own life. If you'd asked them, would you like to have that white picket fence, They'd say yes. So the question that Jesus asked, do you want to get well, I think is a good one. Because everybody in prison wants to get out. And a lot of them that I have known over the years come back. If you'd asked them this time, do you want to get out, they would have said yes, I want to get out. But they get out, and something doesn't change. And they wind up back in prison. So the question is fair. Do you really want to stay out of jail? Because something has to change. Now, there are about three things that can make us change. When I got out of jail, I was encouraged to change to the point where I rearranged the furniture in my life. By that, I mean parole. I had four years of parole left on me. Parole means that if you mess up during that time, those four years come back on your life. You go back to prison for four more years. That was an incentive to me. That should work in most people's lives. For me, it didn't entirely. I just wasn't caught when I could have been. But for the most part, I rearranged my life. I moved out of the city that I was in. I moved to the West Coast. And so I changed by rearranging the furniture to do less of the things that I used to be doing and hanging less and not at all with the people that I used to hang with. So I did rearrange the furniture, but did I change in my heart? No, I was just not wanting to go back to jail. The change wasn't because I was convicted that I should change, but the parole encouraged me to change. Another is some people are forced to change. Prison forces some changes. When they go to jail, they are forced to be away from their families. They are forced to do the amount of time that the society says they must do. And so the question, do you really want to get well, is a fair one, wouldn't you say? This man lives in a society, I call it kind of a daycare center for disabled people. I'm sure like the people responsible for them drop them off in the morning and they hung out there all day long. And what do you think they did all day? I don't think they were watching the pool all day long. Do you? I think they were chatting with each other. Oh, there's old blind Maria. Oh, there's one-armed Harry. You know, they had nicknames for each other. The kids coming by, on the, by the gate, looking in, mocked them, made fun of them. Here's a bunch of losers, big L on their heads. You know what I think some of those kids did? I think they threw pebbles in the pool to make some of them jump in and think it was the angel. Now, I know you think kids would never do that. We all got human nature, right? And so their life was one of, I'll bet the pool rippled from time, I'll bet maybe they fooled each other once in a while. Hey, let's get Harry to jump in today. And there goes Harry. That's because their only way of getting out of there is to believe this story. Would you agree with that? When Jesus asked this man, like I asked Chris, you want to get out of that wheelchair? His answer was sure. That's not what this guy said, is it? Let's read it again, what he answered. He said, sir, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. When I'm trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me. So what is he banking his whole hope of being healed on? This story. How many people are following religions? banking on the hope that the story is true. Think about this. I think even non-religious people are living their lives based on some angel story. Not supernatural, but they've pinned their hope on the way they perceive life. All of us do that. There are atheists who are pinning their hopes on that there's nothing after this. Talk about faith. To me, the atheist has a harder deal with faith than you do. He's banking his eternal life that there's nothing after he closes his eyes. And he doesn't know what happens after he dies. And so this man's hope is that if he's ever going to walk again, he's got to jump into the water when the angel comes and stir it. But what's his problem with that hope? He can't walk. He needs someone else to help him into the pool. Now let me ask you a very serious question here. Who among those other disabled people who want to be healed is going to help him get in the water before them? There's a flaw in this hope, but it's a hope nonetheless. He was a paraplegic. He could not walk from the waist down. Remember Chris Reeves, the guy that played Superman? Any of you? The one that he got paralyzed on a horse, with an accident with a horse. He fell and broke his neck. Even today, we cannot heal those spinal kind of injuries. Or Chris, you would be there, right? Even today, we can't do it. So this man, 2,000 years ago, his only hope is that he can get into a pool of water. And I think many of them may have held it out as a hope, but probably felt it was never going to happen to them. I once heard a, and I wasn't there. I never went to college. This was one of those college experiences. But what I read was that this experience, and whatever college this was, was they put a group of mice into a tub of water. And the sides were too high for the mice to jump out, so they could only swim. And they let the mice swim just to see how long it takes them to die. That was only half the experiment. Don't think they're too cruel. This was an experiment. They swam about two to three hours and drowned. Then they put in a second group of mice. and let them do the same thing. They swam in this tub, and when they saw them starting to bob around the two-hour mark, they stuck in a branch. And the little mice scurried right up at the branch and got out. Then they put that same group of second mice back in the tub, and they swam for five days. Why? Now, I wasn't there. I don't know if it really was five days or four days. The point was is that it was days. What was the difference for that second group of mice? Someone might come back with a branch. That's in there now. This man had no hope that things would change other than the impossibility of an angel coming and stirring up waters and somehow someone being kind enough to give up their being healed to get him in the water. Slim, but he was holding on to it. So, because when Jesus asked him, do you want to go? Well, he thinks that the only way this could happen is someone's got to help me into the water. And Jesus said, get up. And he feels. His body change and he gets up and he walks. Jesus was pointing to who he is, that he might have faith that he can do everything else. Why do people not change? Some of us have friends who are in self-destructive patterns that you would assume they want to get out of. And you've tried to reach them, you've tried to help them, you've done whatever you could. We've spent time with individuals in our lives, day after day, through trying to get out of some form of addiction, whatever it is. And they want to get out. But oftentimes, no change. They've just lost hope, really. What is ultimately, though, our condition? What ultimately is our problem? What is it that really needs to be changed? Well, here's a church of Christians, we know what the problem is, don't we? We got it from our first father, Adam. We're born with a sinful nature. There is something dwelling in us that makes us do the wrong thing. Jesus says in John Chapter 8, a few chapters from here, he says, whoever sins is a slave to sin. I told you I rearranged the furniture in my life so that I wouldn't go back to jail, but I wasn't changed. And I still slipped here and there because my nature hadn't changed. I didn't know until the Lord Jesus Christ came into my life that I was the problem. I changed my geography. I thought if I could just quit living where I was living and being with the people I was living with, things will change. And so I moved. And I took the problem with me. I think I told you I had 30 jobs by the time I was 30 years old. Remember I told you how odd it was that I wound up working for 30 jerks in a row? That really was my mindset, because I didn't know what the problem was. Gwen and I had this dear friend named Monty Lewis. I wish you could have met him. He's home with the Lord now. He was a madman when he was a young guy, biker, alcoholic, tried every known drug. He used to rattle off for about five minutes straight every drug he took, just one after another. And he was crazy, set himself on fire one time, locked up several times in Canadian prisons. They gave up on him. And his testimony was he was sitting in the hole naked on a Christmas Eve because he had messed up in prison and they were punishing him. And a little old man, this is his, I'm quoting his words now. A little old man from the Salvation Army got permission to come down into the hole on Christmas Eve, and he said it was snowing out that night. He didn't expect any visitors, let alone down in the hole. And this little old man from the Salvation Army came down, and he told Monty this. Monty, you're a sinner, and you need Jesus Christ to forgive your sins. Now, Monty was a tough convict. You know what he said? He said, that's the first time in my life anyone ever told me I was a sinner. He says, oh, I had counselors telling me I was a drug addict and I needed a program. I had people telling me I've got an anger problem, I need anger management. I had people telling me I was an alcoholic, I needed to go to AA. I had people telling me that I was a sociopath, I needed to be locked up and put away and put under supervision. He said, they told me I had a disease. But no one had ever told me that I was a sinner. And that little old man from the Salvation Army asked me if I wanted to pray to receive Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of his sins. And there he was, this madman in the hole on a Christmas Eve with no answers to his life, no hope, put his arms through the bars, put his hands in that old man's hands and prayed to receive Christ. And the story from there is he went on and led and developed one of the most powerful, if not the most successful, prison ministry in Canada, still going today after his death. He started a camp for prisoners' families, children, to come. He works with some of Canada's toughest convicts, many of whom he knew when he was in. His life radically changed from the moment someone told him that he was a sinner, identified what the real problem was. Look down at verse 14. Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, see you are well again, stop sinning or something worse may happen to you. Something worse may happen to you? He's been paralyzed for 38 years. What could be worse than being paralyzed for 38 years? What could be worse than some of the trials that you faced in your life? Am I right or am I wrong? What maybe could be worse than what you're going through right now? God knows. He does not pass by like the rest of the world. You know, when people pass by a prison, you know what many will say? Perhaps some of you will say it. They'll point at the prison as they drive by in their car and they'll say, there but for the grace of God go I. How often have you heard people say that? And praise God for that statement. Many of you could have been in jail. You just were never caught. I had an old deacon come up to me when I was preaching at a Baptist church up in New Hampshire. And he came up to me after the service and he leaned over. He was about 80. I'll soon be there. He leaned over to me and says, you know, we're really not like those people in prison. So I get my little defense mechanism up, you know, and I'm getting ready for a battle. And he says, really, why not? We ran faster. I love that guy. I gave him a hug. But that's our problem, isn't it? We're sinners from young to old. That's the issue. We want to change, but we may have our hope in something else for change. Most people are just hoping, period, that somehow their life will work out all right. Do you have a challenge today? A challenge, something you'd like to get rid of that you have, or something that you want that you don't have. There's something more important than those things. You can find true contentment in whatever situation you find yourself if you know the beautiful Lord Jesus Christ. But we gotta know first what our problem is. I didn't know what my problem was. Monty didn't know what his problem was until someone told us. Jesus sought this person out. I get such encouragement from this. There was a great number, I don't know why he didn't go to the others, but there was a great number of disabled people there and Jesus made inquiries about him and walked up to him, went through the whole crowd and came to that man. Do you want to get well? I got no one to help me. No, no, that's not what I asked you. Do you want to get well? You may not have all the theological answers, you may not know the Bible very well, but my question to you is, if you're a sinner and if you die today without Jesus Christ, the Bible says you will spend eternity in hell because you are a sinner and we cannot be reunited with the holy God. That's our problem. That's the most important problem. That's what I got to know first. And the reason I do so many wrong things and make so many bad choices is because I have a nature that is inclined that way. But when Jesus Christ comes in, you know what the miracle is? He breaks the power of sin in our lives. Changes do begin to come. If you're truly a Christian here, you are on a journey of change. Am I right or am I wrong? You have been changing ever since you became a Christian. Am I right or am I wrong? Young or old? The moment the Holy Spirit of God came into your life, you began to change and God put you on a road of change. Not that your life will be perfect, not that you will not sin, not that you will not encounter difficulties. Chris, you may never get out of this chair in this lifetime, but he has prepared a place for you where you will be jumping and praising God for all eternity. And I thank you for your kind spirit and your enthusiasm for life, because he has a hope other than what is obvious in this world. When you have Jesus, you got everything. He did not pass this man by. The world will pass you by. They'll go and they'll say, there but for the grace of God go I. Do you know what the prisoners say? I'm gonna let you in on what they say, the saved ones. They say, here because of the grace of God, I am. They're praising God for sending them to prison. Praising God that someone came in, like that little old man from the Salvation Army with Monty Lewis, and said, you know, your problem is you're a sinner. You're separated from God, but Jesus loves you. He died for you. He paid for your sins. You know that's why Christians are going to heaven? Because they believe that Jesus Christ laid down his life and paid for every single thing they've ever done. That's why you're going home. It's all been done for you. That's why I like what one of the people's names who I couldn't pronounce in your book said, he's the prize. Faith is the vehicle that apprehends him. You want to be well? You want to be healed? In the most important way, we've got a sin problem. We can't make the changes ourselves. It has to be an internal change. I used to think that if a speed limit sign said 50, that meant I could go 90 safely. Now, I don't need the sign outside. I still go about five or six miles over. But something is governing me on the inside that never an outside limit could perform. God is changing me. My wife knew me when I wasn't a Christian. I knew her when she wasn't a Christian. We live every day. We've been married now 45 years, 46. Rats. And I thank God for her. I nearly in my ignorance threw away the best thing that could have ever happened to me apart from knowing Jesus. But she remembers what I was like. Some of you can remember what each other were like and you see changes coming. If you've got Jesus, he's going to bring the changes. But the most important thing he will do first is heal you with God the Father. For God so loved the world that he gave his precious son, Jesus, that whoever believes. Are you a whoever? You a whoever? Anybody here not a whoever? Whoever believes shall not perish but have eternal life. May little Constance come to know him early in life. Look what God has done. He's planted him in a Christian home. What a miracle. I'll close with this story. And you will get out of here early today. All right. Well, let me go back to my notes. I forgot the story anyway. I interrupted myself. No, when you're finished, you're finished. I would say this. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call on him while he is near. Let the wicked man forsake his ways, the unrighteous person, their thoughts, our own stinking thinking, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, and he will abundantly pardon. You want to pardon? The one with the Lord Jesus Christ is the one that counts. Life changes from then. I know I finished early, but that's the story. You feel like you've got something in your life that's a hurdle. You don't know what it is. First of all, if you're not a Christian, if you haven't given your life to Jesus Christ, you can't work your way to heaven. You can't knock on enough doors and pass out enough of those flyers. Nice flyer, by the way. You can't put enough money in the plate. You can't say enough prayers. You cannot save yourself. God had mercy on you. And he still sends people. uses you and I to tell others. That's the vehicle God uses. It's amazing to me. God isn't sending angels to tell other people about Jesus. He's sending you and I. 38 years this man was paralyzed. You know, I actually met a man just like that. There's an age in prison where the guys that have started out doing time as young people are still in prison at 38. There's something around the year 38 years old where some of the prisoners realize, I'm 38 years old and I'm still in prison. I've been in and out five or six times. And they're tired of being tired. And I can remember coming to one man's cell, and he had that look. He was just waiting for me to come down, because he was in the segregation unit, and they all know when someone's come on the tier. And so he could hear the conversation I was having with other people at their cells, and he knew I would get to his. And when I came, he was just leaning against the cell door with the most tired expression on his face. It was like he was just, If he'd have died, he'd have been happy. That's how the look on his face was. And I asked him how old he was, and he said, 38 years old. And we talked, we shared the gospel, and he said, you know, Lenny, I've watched you come in here before. He says, I've been in here three or four times, and you're still coming in here telling us the same thing. You know what he said to me? There must be something to it. I'll tell you, I was rejoicing. I didn't care that he was there three or four times already and never got it. If the fifth time he got it, and what was the vehicle? This little short guy had a mustache at that time. This little short balding guy with Bibles in his hand. There's no power there, the guards would say. And he said there was no power there for four times. But at 38 years old, God had made him tired enough to begin looking beyond his perspective, looking beyond his mice in the tub, looking beyond his angel that needs to stir, looking beyond his hope for what he didn't know and was willing to give it a try. I wish I could tell you what happened to him after that. He either got shipped out or I got moved, but he, for the first time in his life, investigated the gospel. Where are the vehicles? Those dear friends that are annoying you with Jesus, if you're not a Christian, they've got the answer for your life. Let's close in prayer. Father, we just thank you so much for not passing us by. And on this day, Father, on this day, there isn't a person in this room that can say that you have passed them by. I pray that you would touch their hearts, Father, where the work and the miracle really needs to happen. I pray, Father, what you can only do, you're the only one, Lord, touch their hearts and help them realize that, first of all, that you sought them out. You took the initiative when everyone else was passing by. that they don't have to rely on themselves, the only ones behind their eyes. There is a God who has had his eye on them all these years. Father, open their hearts. May they realize, first of all, that they're not with you, that they have sinned and fallen short of who you are, but that you love them. As was quoted first thing this morning, but God demonstrates his love for us in this. that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Oh Lord, let the soul here this morning that has not put their trust in you, may this be the day, grant them the faith that they need to grab hold of you and say, Lord Jesus, forgive me, I'm a sinner. And I believe in my heart that you died on a cross to pay for my sins, and that your father has accepted me because he punished his son instead of me. Lord, I want that to count for me. I want to disregard every other hope I've had. I want to put aside everything else that's secondary to knowing you. Lord Jesus, come into my life this day and change me. I thank you because you have the power to do it. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you.